Also, what I said about your other comment wasn't necessarily concerning other people in this thread, or even this thread specifically.

it's interesting, though

it could be interpreted as being directed at people with certain insufferably stupid opinions,
but it's usually cheap to open one's opinions up to criticism on the internet, which is a good thing as far as I'm concerned
so, really, the only people who need be overly concerned about that are those who hold insufferably stupid opinions that they are unwilling to change

but sometimes it's more unlikely that useful criticism will be obtained than other times,
and sometimes one's own ego getting bruised up a bit isn't the only risk at hand_________________butts

You know, I really don't give a shit if it is condescending to note when a culture has some extremely fucked up troglodyte shit going on. I don't subscribe to cultural relativism in any mincing sense at all. Somebody might as well tell me i'm on some kind of cultural high horse when I look at something like FGM or pashtun child brides and say that shit is fucked and you need to deal with it and I don't like your culture because it has these things in it.

It just bothers me to talk about what other cultures are doing when I only know what the media has to say. I just don't trust the source not to be racist as hell, even if it is unintentional sometimes. I don't know where to draw the line._________________Samsally the GrayAce

there's that, too, but not sharing opinions and not forming opinions to begin with are totally different things

That's the point that I admire about her though. It's not that she's not forming opinions, it's that she's slow to express them.

Sam: but you're talking about heinous facts, not a person's opinion. Pointing out some fucked up shit that's going on elsewhere in the world isn't necessarily the same as expressing your own personal opinion on it. The two of course are going to influence each other, but it's possible to express an opinion without sharing facts and vice versa.

What can I possibly do that isn't condescending as hell, sitting on a high horse telling some other culture what to do with themselves?

one could argue that that's exactly what we're doing when we come down on the Nice Guys who whine about being friendzoned and say that women who get raped are to blame for their rapes. it hasn't stopped us so far, nor should it.

i think you're taking cultural relativism in a direction it should not be taken. criticizing the abusive and oppressive aspects of some other culture doesn't have to be a case of the White Man's Burden, even if that's how critique of other cultures has gone down historically. it's not as though there aren't people in India (or anywhere else) who are trying to bring down the oppressive and abusive aspects of their own cultures--just as people are trying to do here, in our culture. finding them and helping them out isn't cultural imperialism--whether it's by donations or if it's just by spreading their stories around the internet so people can see what a horrible system they're trying to change. besides which, if it's part of your culture to enshrine and protect the oppression and abuse of women, well, so what, that part of your culture is shit and it should change. that it's part of the culture has never been a good enough excuse for the oppression and abuse of women in our culture; why should anyone else's get a pass?

yes, that line of thinking has historically gone in very bad directions. then again, taking the other direction and just turning away because you think it's not your place to comment doesn't take you anywhere good either.

I'm offering straight-up opinions and — more importantly — judgment. I can't hide behind the notion that I am just observing facts when I actively denounce or provide invective to an element of a culture.

Sam - What I see you regularly stating are well informed opinions. I took Samsally's statement (although maybe she didn't mean it this way) to mean that she doesn't offer her opinion unless she feels knowledgeable about it to a certain degree (a degree of familiarity and knowledge which she herself sets). Maybe I'm misinterpreting her.

******************

On an unrelated, yet horribly ironic note, this thread has google thinking I want to date Asian girls, not that there's anything wrong with Asian girls. I think Google needs a better way to examine the actual content of what's being discussed. Now I'm no software engineer, but if words like "rape", "abuse", "heinous", "crime", "cultural relativism", etc. are on the page, maybe, just maybe, I might not want to see advertising for services which are only extremely tangentially related to what is being discussed._________________...if a single leaf holds the eye, it will be as if the remaining leaves were not there.http://about.me/omardrake

one could argue that that's exactly what we're doing when we come down on the Nice Guys who whine about being friendzoned and say that women who get raped are to blame for their rapes. it hasn't stopped us so far, nor should it.

I'm not convinced dudes who've grown up in the exact same society as me get to pull the cultural difference card.

ShadowCell wrote:

i think you're taking cultural relativism in a direction it should not be taken. criticizing the abusive and oppressive aspects of some other culture doesn't have to be a case of the White Man's Burden, even if that's how critique of other cultures has gone down historically. it's not as though there aren't people in India (or anywhere else) who are trying to bring down the oppressive and abusive aspects of their own cultures--just as people are trying to do here, in our culture. finding them and helping them out isn't cultural imperialism--whether it's by donations or if it's just by spreading their stories around the internet so people can see what a horrible system they're trying to change. besides which, if it's part of your culture to enshrine and protect the oppression and abuse of women, well, so what, that part of your culture is shit and it should change. that it's part of the culture has never been a good enough excuse for the oppression and abuse of women in our culture; why should anyone else's get a pass?

So, I think I do get where you're coming from. I am definitely not arguing that spreading stories written by people actually living in those situations is bad because it's not, its important and part of what makes social media what it is (and I do love me some social media). I'm also not arguing that donating to reputable charities is bad, either (thanks for that link, by the way).

ShadowCell wrote:

yes, that line of thinking has historically gone in very bad directions. then again, taking the other direction and just turning away because you think it's not your place to comment doesn't take you anywhere good either.

So how do we make it NOT go like it has in the past? Spreading true stories and donating to charities are good things. Hating on an entire culture for fucking up isn't.

Sam wrote:

I'm offering straight-up opinions and — more importantly — judgment. I can't hide behind the notion that I am just observing facts when I actively denounce or provide invective to an element of a culture.

But here, this is different now. Now you're talking about an element of a culture, when before you were denouncing the entire thing. This is a REALLY important distinction to me.

Basically my only point is that I do everything I possibly can not to be hateful towards large groups of people (particularly large groups of people I've never met). It's important to me. Intersectionality is a sadly neglected part of feminism. It complicates things, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth taking into account._________________Samsally the GrayAce

Yeah, but it was not bad in and of itself; it was when people started meshing it with moral relativism that shit hit the fan. I think what it was intended to mean and achieve and what it is currently utilized for are two very different things.

Initially, in intent, it was supposed to help people judge other cultures more fairly i.e. to combat ethnocentrism. Now, it's used for shit like this:

Quote:

Several nations have used cultural relativism as a justification for limiting the rights in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. A 2011 study by international legal expert Roger Lloret Blackburn, examining the Universal Periodic Reviews, distinguishes several different groups of nations. One group consists of nations where the current regime has been installed by revolution and that deny the need for political plurality: China, Viet Nam, Myanmar, Cuba and Iran. Another group are certain Islamic nations that deny equal rights for men and women and adhere to Sharia and certain traditional practices: Yemen, Iran, Pakistan. A third possible group, although different from the two other groups, are nations that give special rights to groups such as minorities: Malaysia, Mexico, Indonesia, and Colombia.

_________________...if a single leaf holds the eye, it will be as if the remaining leaves were not there.http://about.me/omardrake

denouncing an element of a culture--like, say, whether it encourages and covers up rape--is not the same thing as denouncing an entire culture. as long as you keep straight what it is you're talking about, you aren't really being hateful in calling out some horrible aspect of some other society.

denouncing an element of a culture--like, say, whether it encourages and covers up rape--is not the same thing as denouncing an entire culture. as long as you keep straight what it is you're talking about, you aren't really being hateful in calling out some horrible aspect of some other society.

Yeah, you're right. I guess I just had to talk about it to get it straight in my head.

It still puts me on edge. Like, how do we know history won't repeat itself? I'm just worried it will._________________Samsally the GrayAce

Cultural relativism is a very useful analytical perspective tool for anthropological or sociological study. It's useless and stupid as a moral principle. It's also a pretty horseshit justification for a country's ridiculous bullshit. Totally unsurprised to see china and myanmar having their one-party rulers try to wave away one-party rule as just inexorably part of the culture. Also totally unsurprised to see places like Pakistan saying hurr we don't have to treat women like human beings because cultural relativism hurr

What next, saudia arabia claims that not letting women be autonomous or be allowed to drive is just how we roll don't judge us yo